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Recovering Sarge's SGPRSMD
If you have a tractor, you have to have something to pull with it, right?
In the finest traditions of “No new OD for Sarge in 2009” he made his 6th buy of the year, an SGPRSMD, also known as Shop Equipment, General Purpose Repair, Semi-trailer Mounted, at Ft Sam on Thursday of last week. Basically, it is an entire machine and welding shop in a big bat-wing trailer. Very cool.
Says Sarge Thursday night “Let’s go get it Monday”. Having never bought from GL personally but reading a lot of “My EUC is taking 47 months to process…” threads on SS I reply “Eh??”
But sure enough, Friday he says “The paperwork is done, let’s leave at sparrowfa*t Monday morning”. (Military parlance for too bloody early to be awake).
In due course it is 0615 Monday morning, we are at the farm in a fine misting rain, which adds so much ambiance to my general mood from being awake at that time of day (I normally get home from work around 0300), the sparrows wisely are still fluffed up asleep on their branches with nary an emitted postern puff. With me muttering pleasantries that I will not write here lest ladies or children read this tale, into the M818 and off to San Antonio we go.
I think I mentioned in the M818 recovery thread that the truck is loud with no muffler. That was from the driver’s seat; from the passenger seat it is positively horrendous!
We arrived at Ft Sam and met up with Mkcoen in the GL yard. He had very kindly come down to help get the trailer ready to go. Close inspection of the trailer showed the back door on the ground (broken hinge); tires needing attention, a broken brake air glad-hand, etc... Inside though, what a treasure trove! The trailer has boxes and boxes and drawers FULL of tools and equipment. It is going to be like Christmas for Sarge when he goes through that lot.
We set to work with Mark doing tires, Sarge replacing glad-hands and me rewiring the trailer light hookup to make it work. Everything secured inside and out and we were finally ready to go.
During the course of this I was looking over Mark’s M1009, which he had driven down. He mentioned that he had just bought another very nice one. Says I quietly, “Wot you going to do with this one then?”. Mark- “Sell it to you so you don’t have to listen to that bellowing M818 on the trip back”. Worked too.
So off we go to Spring Branch to drop Mark off and head home. We stopped for a hub check after a bit, all seemed okay. After about 20 more miles I smelled a familiar smell and visions of State Troopers and fire engines flashed through my mind. Not wanting a repeat of a recent event (even though we had something like six fire extinguishers with us), I get Sarge to pull over. Sure enough, the brakes on the back trailer axle are dragging and are now smoking. Sarge mutters some words, nearby sailors blush, and we set to work finding a temporary fix. In this case, it was disconnect the trailer brakes, start moving, stop moving and go back and drain the trailer air tank (doh! we all forgot that one) and start moving slowly down to the gas station to run water over the brake drums to cool them off. Better a cracked or warped drum than a burned up trailer. Blah, blah, we got the brakes loose, hooked everything back up and headed to Spring Branch. After lunch and dropping Mark off at home, we headed on. Frequent stops showed that the brakes were indeed fixed, no more hot hubs thankfully. But the power steering was barfing fluid again. Oh well…
Now, gentle reader, as I have mentioned before there is a good reason that the Texas Hill Country is thus named. And we live in the higher hilly part of the Hill Country. Long story short, the speed of an M818 towing 31k+ pounds of SGPRSMD up long hills is approximately 15-20 mph! Birds on the right side of the road were blasted from their nests by the 818 exhaust and numerous denizens of the local woods no doubt suffered permanent trauma. (In deer language, to its assembled young- “Let me tell you of Godzilla…"). The last part of the trip was grueling, to say the least, but finally we dragged in through the gate at the farm, 12 hours and 15 minutes after we left. Sarge got out of the 818, kissed the ground, we parked and secured everything, and that was that.
So endeth the tale.
Now, enough blathering from me, go read something interesting.
Cheers
If you have a tractor, you have to have something to pull with it, right?
In the finest traditions of “No new OD for Sarge in 2009” he made his 6th buy of the year, an SGPRSMD, also known as Shop Equipment, General Purpose Repair, Semi-trailer Mounted, at Ft Sam on Thursday of last week. Basically, it is an entire machine and welding shop in a big bat-wing trailer. Very cool.
Says Sarge Thursday night “Let’s go get it Monday”. Having never bought from GL personally but reading a lot of “My EUC is taking 47 months to process…” threads on SS I reply “Eh??”
But sure enough, Friday he says “The paperwork is done, let’s leave at sparrowfa*t Monday morning”. (Military parlance for too bloody early to be awake).
In due course it is 0615 Monday morning, we are at the farm in a fine misting rain, which adds so much ambiance to my general mood from being awake at that time of day (I normally get home from work around 0300), the sparrows wisely are still fluffed up asleep on their branches with nary an emitted postern puff. With me muttering pleasantries that I will not write here lest ladies or children read this tale, into the M818 and off to San Antonio we go.
I think I mentioned in the M818 recovery thread that the truck is loud with no muffler. That was from the driver’s seat; from the passenger seat it is positively horrendous!
We arrived at Ft Sam and met up with Mkcoen in the GL yard. He had very kindly come down to help get the trailer ready to go. Close inspection of the trailer showed the back door on the ground (broken hinge); tires needing attention, a broken brake air glad-hand, etc... Inside though, what a treasure trove! The trailer has boxes and boxes and drawers FULL of tools and equipment. It is going to be like Christmas for Sarge when he goes through that lot.
We set to work with Mark doing tires, Sarge replacing glad-hands and me rewiring the trailer light hookup to make it work. Everything secured inside and out and we were finally ready to go.
During the course of this I was looking over Mark’s M1009, which he had driven down. He mentioned that he had just bought another very nice one. Says I quietly, “Wot you going to do with this one then?”. Mark- “Sell it to you so you don’t have to listen to that bellowing M818 on the trip back”. Worked too.
So off we go to Spring Branch to drop Mark off and head home. We stopped for a hub check after a bit, all seemed okay. After about 20 more miles I smelled a familiar smell and visions of State Troopers and fire engines flashed through my mind. Not wanting a repeat of a recent event (even though we had something like six fire extinguishers with us), I get Sarge to pull over. Sure enough, the brakes on the back trailer axle are dragging and are now smoking. Sarge mutters some words, nearby sailors blush, and we set to work finding a temporary fix. In this case, it was disconnect the trailer brakes, start moving, stop moving and go back and drain the trailer air tank (doh! we all forgot that one) and start moving slowly down to the gas station to run water over the brake drums to cool them off. Better a cracked or warped drum than a burned up trailer. Blah, blah, we got the brakes loose, hooked everything back up and headed to Spring Branch. After lunch and dropping Mark off at home, we headed on. Frequent stops showed that the brakes were indeed fixed, no more hot hubs thankfully. But the power steering was barfing fluid again. Oh well…
Now, gentle reader, as I have mentioned before there is a good reason that the Texas Hill Country is thus named. And we live in the higher hilly part of the Hill Country. Long story short, the speed of an M818 towing 31k+ pounds of SGPRSMD up long hills is approximately 15-20 mph! Birds on the right side of the road were blasted from their nests by the 818 exhaust and numerous denizens of the local woods no doubt suffered permanent trauma. (In deer language, to its assembled young- “Let me tell you of Godzilla…"). The last part of the trip was grueling, to say the least, but finally we dragged in through the gate at the farm, 12 hours and 15 minutes after we left. Sarge got out of the 818, kissed the ground, we parked and secured everything, and that was that.
So endeth the tale.
Now, enough blathering from me, go read something interesting.
Cheers
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.....well, at least you took the pics to post. A+ job.
